Why is it that my programs are not recording on my TIVO?

Question

I have DirecTV and two TIVO DVR's. Sometimes when it's time to record a program the chanel does not change. Actually, it'll change and it'll say it's on the right chanel, but there will be a black screen with a DirecTV screen saver adn that is what is supposed to be recorded. For example: I'll program the TIVO to record USA, Law & Order. The tv chanel will say it's on USA, but there will be a black screen and it'll say that station is not available to me, but it'll be on the wrong station and it'll have a black screen and a DirecTV screen saver. Help me!

Answer 1

I use DishNetwork, but I think I know what the problem is.

First question: are your TiVos standalone TiVos, i.e., are the TiVos separate from the DirecTV boxes? Or are your TiVos the combo kinds that are DirecTV boxes with TiVo built-in?

If they're standalone, then here's what I think is wrong:

The DirecTV boxes go to sleep after not having their channels changed in a while-- probably 6-8 hours of non-use. When this happens, then screen saver appears and you can't watch TV again until you press a key on the remote control.

If the DirecTV box falls asleep and is on the screen saver, and your TiVo then wants to record something and it needs to change the channel, it sends the appropriate channel change information to the box (probably IR), but it does this incorrectly.

For example, say you want to record CNN channel 202. When the DirecTV box sends out the channel change commands of 2 then 0 then 2, the first 2 wakes the box up from its screen saver mode, and then the 0 and 2 get sent to the box, so the result is that the box will tune itself to channel 02 instead of channel 202.

The TiVo will still think it's on channel 202 'cause that's what it's supposed to be recording. The TiVo doesn't know what channel the DirecTV box is on 'cause there's no information going the other direction as to what channel the box is actually on.

SO! To fix this problem, I programmed in a bunch of 5 minute manual recordings throughout the day and night on the TiVo (every four hours I think) on a channel with a single digit (in my case Channel 5). I moved all of these manual recordings to the bottom of my TiVo priority list so that they won't interfere with things I really want to record.

Now when the box falls asleep, it's waken up again every four hours by a channel change command to Channel 5. This channel change command (since it's only one digit in length), will both wake the box up AND tune the channel to channel 5. Therefore, the box and the TiVo will still be in sync and the box will be awake whenever a real show needs to be recorded.

Then every now and then I go through my TiVo Now Playing list and delete all the 5 minute manual recordings. It's kind of a klunky solution and if you neglect the deletion process then the Now Playing list gets full, but it works and it has been working for a few years now.

Hope that helps.